Trump says he will delay TikTok ban, suggests a joint venture with US ownership

TikTok went dark for users in the US on Saturday night, but it may not be gone for long.

President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday morning that he will issue an executive order Monday that will “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”

Even before TikTok went down, Trump had said he would “most likely” give the company a 90-day extension.

In his post Sunday, Trump also presented his “initial thought” on what a deal might look like, describing it as “a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership.”

Bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress passed a law last April that would force ByteDance to either sell TikTok or see it banned in the United States; the law was quickly signed by President Joe Biden. Trump, who tried to force ByteDance to sell TikTok during his first term, loudly opposed the ban this time.

With the Supreme Court upholding the law in a ruling Friday, the law set to take effect Sunday, and Trump’s inauguration scheduled for Monday, White House and Department of Justice officials made statements suggesting that they’d leave the ban’s actual implementation to the incoming president.

However, TikTok said that “critical service providers” needed a more “definitive statement” that they would not be punished for continuing to host or list the app; without those assurances, the app would go dark. (A White House spokesperson called TikTok’s position “a stunt.”) When the app actually went down, TikTok shared a message with users that “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.”

Trump’s post suggests that he’d like to see TikTok go live again even before he issues his executive order, writing that he’s “asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark” and that his order will “confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”

“Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations,” Trump wrote.